By
February 1863, the “quick war” to put down the states in rebellion was ending
its second full year of battle. The 500,000 volunteers President Lincoln called
for in 1861 were not enough to end the rebellion. General McClelland’s Peninsular Campaign of
June 1862 did not achieve the promised victory to capture Richmond, thereby
ending the war. In July of 1862,
President Lincoln called for an additional 300,000 volunteers, from all the states
left in the Union, to unify the nation once again. California however was exempt from
fulfilling the state’s quota of volunteers to fight in the east due to the
prohibitive cost of “moving the men to the East Coast.” (1)
Even
though California was exempt from sending volunteers, there were men who
believed California should send troops. In
October of 1862, James Swell Reed a transplanted Massachusetts business man
living in San Francisco proposed a plan to raise a volunteer company of cavalry
for the Union cause. The men would be credited to the Massachusetts quota of
volunteers.
On
December 11, 1862, 0ne hundred and three men departed San Francisco, California
enroute to Boston, Massachusetts. They
were called the California 100, Cal 100 for short. These men volunteered to serve in a Massachusetts
Cavalry regiment for“three years or the war.
Shortly after the departure of the Cal 100 a call went out for four more
cavalry companies to be formed of California men to also go off to war in a
Massachusetts cavalry regiment.
The Alta California,
a San Francisco newspaper, ran this ad on Friday December 19th 1862:
“LIGHT CAVALRY WANTED…. Four companies of Cavalry for active service in the war
at the East… very (sic) man joining these companies must be in good health,
intelligent, active, an (sic) capable of preforming the hardest light cavalry
service.” This ad would run continuously
until the four companies were full. (2)
Merrill Beal a thirty year old shoemaker turned butcher,
transplanted from Natick, Massachusetts, answered the call. On January 30 1863, Merrill Beal walked into
Platt’s Music Hall on Montgomery Street and signed his enlistment papers. (3) On Tuesday
February 5, 1863, after putting his affairs in order, Merrill reported to
Platt’s Hall and was mustered in to the California Battalion, along with 99
other volunteers. Thus began and
adventure that would forever link Merrill to a famed and glorious battalion. An
Adventure which would bring him back home to become a member of the 2nd Massachusetts
Volunteer Cavalry.
The story of how Merrill came to be in California is a
little vague. In early 1860, the
shoemakers of Massachusetts went on strike. Merrill along with his ten brothers, all
shoemakers, went out on strike. By early
spring of 1860, the shoe manufactures succeeded in breaking the strike and
forcing the shoemakers back to work. The shoemakers of New England were
devastated after the strike. The lack of
work and the low pay forced many shoemakers to find other forms of
employment. Merrill’s older brother George
Beal became a photographer. This event was probably the reason Merrill went west.
The
trip west was most likely done overland.
Merrill would have had to take the overland route to California because
it was the least expensive way to get to California. To take a steamship down to Panama, than a
train across the isthmus, then another steamer to California would have been
far beyond Merrill’s means. Plus,
the long journey across the continent would explain why he was not on any of the
census record of the 1860’s. If Merrill had gone west right after the shoemaker
strike ended, he would have been somewhere on the Plains during the 1860
decennial census. All of Merrill’s family was counted in the 1860’s census all
that is except Merrill. A check of the
census records in California show no record of any Merrill Beal residing
anywhere in California during the 1860 census. So there was a good chance that
he was crossing the country in a wagon train when the census of 1860 was being tabulated.
Once
he reached the west coast, Merrill settled in San Francisco and began what he
thought would be a new life. A life the
rest of his family would gradually lose track of; if Merrill’s life had played
out normally. However, the election of Abraham Lincoln to
the Presidency would drastically change the course of Merrill’s life; as well
as the lives of over three million other men in America at that time.
Guidon Company M
Mike Sorenson Collection
When
the Civil War began, Union Army General in Chief Winfield Scott believed “one to two years to be the minimum time needed to train cavalrymen and
cavalry horses.” (4) The
Army did not believe that city boys and farm boys could be turned into cavalry
troops in less time than that; the prevailing belief at the time was the
rebellion would be crushed before the volunteers could be properly trained as
cavalry troopers. By the end of 1861, Scott had resigned and
President Lincoln realized by July of 1862 that the rebellion would actually be
a long war. As with all of America’s wars, the citizen soldier stepped up to
the task. The ranks of the volunteer
Union cavalry would swell with city boys and farm boys.
Advertisement placed in San Francisco Newspapers Dec. 1862
Source: http://www.2mass.reunioncivilwar.com/References/flags.htm
On Tuesday February 5, 1863, citizen Merrill C. Beal
became Private Merrill C. Beal of the California Battalion. His first exposer to military life was when
he was standing in a room with the other volunteers waiting his turn to be
examined. As George Towle, of the Cal
100, recollected in his diary, “I stood behind a curtain waiting to be examined.”
(5) Merrill stood there waiting to be
called, he must have been wondering if he would pass the physical exam. At thirty years old he was a bit older than
most recruits. The first test was to
vault over a table followed by “all the exercises and test that the medical
officer required.” (6) After examining
the volunteers, one hundred men were selected. Merrill and his ninety-nine
comrades were given a meal and assigned quarters in the “upper story” of
Platt’s Music Hall. Once the Men had
been fed, their names were entered into the muster book and they were sworn
into service in the California Battalion. (7)
Company M's Discriptive Book Listing Merrill Beal
Company M's Discriptive Book Listing Merrill Beal
Source: NARA
Source: National Archives and Records Administration
Now that Merrill and the other men were
officially sworn into service, they were assigned to companies and issued their
uniforms, sabers and blankets. The rest of their gear would be issued once they
arrived at Camp Meigs in Readville, Massachusetts. Merrill was assigned to
company C (which would later be re-designated company M ) under the command of
Lieutenant Stone. Merrill’s uniform
consisted of “an overcoat with cape light blue in color; jacket reaching to the
hip dark blue in color; fatigue blouse, dark blue in color; trousers light blue
color and dark blue cap with sloping visor.”
The dark blue jacket was “profusely ornamented with yellow worsted
braid,” yellow was the color for cavalry, “around the collar and cuffs and down
each seam at the back and front of the jacket.” (8)
Once the men had been outfitted with their uniforms and
sabers they were drilled in basic saber exercises and company maneuvers. Residents of San Francisco could stroll into
Platt’s Hall and “watch the men drill from atop the gallery which surrounded
the main hall.” (9) This undoubtedly
gave the men an individual sense of pride and the beginning of their identity
as the California Battalion.
Merrill and his comrades were quickly introduced to the jargon
of the U.S. Army and in particular the phraseology of the U.S. Cavalry. Alien words and phrases such as; double quick march, tack, forage,
rank, file, march by flank, riding in the snaffle, curb and sundry other words became part of Merrill’s daily
working vocabulary. One of the first new
words Merrill and the men learned was moulinet.
In
order to do saber exercises, the men were separated into squads of “6 to 8 men,
armed only with sabers; they are placed in one rank, 9 feet from each other.” (10)
The first drill Merrill and the rest of
the men learned was the moulinet. This drill
was designed to loosen the men’s joints and build muscles in the wrists, arms
and shoulders. The moulinet also built
their confidence and dexterity with the saber. No matter how experienced a trooper was with
his saber, when saber exercises were order, they “commenced and ended with the
moulinet.” But first the men had to
learn how to draw their sabers in a smart military manner. (11)
Merrill’s
first drill with the saber began with the “instructor explaining what is meant
by right and left sides of the gripe; by tierce, and by quarte .” (12) Once the instructor was satisfied that each man
under stood each part of the saber, he would demonstrate the maneuver to the
men. This would have been done smartly
and proficiently due to the fact that the men were being drill by “Captain Van
Voast a West Point graduate.” (13) Once the maneuver was completed by Captain Van
Voast, it was the men’s turn.
Merrill
and his comrades awaited the order from Van Voast.
“DRAW.”
Each
man brought his left hand up to the hook holding the saber in its
scabbard. Unhooking the saber, the
“hilt was turned to the front” Each man then ran his “right wrist through the
sword-knot” and wrapped his hand around the gripe while pressing the scabbard,
at the “upper ring” with his left hand, against his thigh. The men were then expected to draw their
sabre out of its scabbard exactly six inches. (14)
At
this point Merrill and the other men were probably nervously waiting for the
next command. This was their first time
doing this drill. The instructor
meanwhile was keenly aware of who had executed the first part of the command
correctly and who had not. Looking down
the line of men and observing the unevenly exposed sabers the instructor waited
then shouted out.
“SABER”
At this point in the drill, the men would
draw their sabers quickly, at a
forty-five degree angle, up and completely out of the scabbard pause for an
instant then bring the back top of the sabre to rest in the hollow of the right
shoulder while keeping the right hand
and wrist level with the their
waist. How many men completed this
maneuver, for the first time, without slicing a finger is unknown, but the odds
are pretty good that at least one of the newly minted cavalry troopers drew
first blood.
The
next lesson was on the return of the saber to its scabbard. The same movements were used only in reverse
and the commands were different. Captain
Van Voast would have reviewed his men.
Once he was satisfied that each man was holding his sabre correctly he
shouted out the next order.
“RETURN.”
Each
man quickly reversed his previous movement and placed the tip of his saber at
the opening of his scabbard. Once the
line of men looked uniform the next order was given.
“SABER”
The
men quickly pushed their saber in to the scabbard pulled their right hand out
of the sword knot, hooked the sabre into the scabbard and “dropped their left
hand.” Captain Van Voast would do this
drill over and over until he was satisfied that the men could complete the
maneuver in two separate but smooth fluid movements. (15)
When
Van Voast was satisfied that the troopers could draw their sabers in a quick,
crisp, uniform military manner, the troopers were introduced to the moulinet. Once the sabers were drawn, the order “ GUARD”
was given. Van Voast would give the order “ Moulinet.” Merrill and the other men would then “extend
their right arm to the front to its full length” bring the hilt of the saber to
eye level while the point of the saber was slightly higher. Merrill would then have to “describe a circle
around” his hand. (16) The Moulinet was
done on the right side, the left side, to the front and to the rear. The troopers were required to do this
exercise dismounted and later, once they received their horses, mounted. This
is an example of the many steps to just one drill Merrill and his comrades had
to master. There would be a hundred more different drills and there intricate
steps to learn and perform flawlessly for the men of the Cal Battalion.
This was just the beginning of Merrill’s
training. Within forty days Merrill and
the California Battalion would set sail for the East. However in those forty days, Merrill would
learn the basic use of the saber, be trained in basic field maneuvers by squad,
company and battalion.
The
Battalion gave its first “public parade and review” on March 8th
1864 just four weeks after the first 100 men enlisted. It was a perfect afternoon “bright and
beautiful.” (17) The Battalion marched
to the Plaza and then performed “their
various evolutions in a prompt, accurate and soldier –like style.” The contemporary account from the Alta California stated the display was a
great success for the Battalion and the citizen of San Francisco. (18) Captain Van Voast had drilled Merrill and his
comrades well. There would be one more
parade and an impromptu musical before the Battalion shipped out to the
East. The Citizens of San Francisco were
proud of their California Battalion. This pride would be displayed for the
Battalion on the day they embarked for War.
Chapter Notes
1.
McLean
, James. California Sabers:The 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry in The Civil War .
Bloomington : Indiana Unversity Press , 2000. Print; page 10.
2.
Rogers
, Larry , and Keith Rodgers . Their Horses Climbed Tree: A Chronicle of the
California 100 and the BAttalion in the Civil War from San Francisco to
Appomattox. Atglen : Schiffer Publishing Ltd. , 2001. Print: page 49.
3.
Beal,
Merrill; Compiled Military Service Record. National Archive and Record
Administration. (CMSR)
4.
Starr , Stephen . "Cavalry Tactic in The
Civil War ." Cininnati Civil War Round Table . N.p., April 26, 1959 . Web.
24 Jul 2012.
5.
Diary:
Towle, George W.; Bancroft Library, Manuscript Collection, U.C. Berkeley; On Line:
http://www.2mass. .com/articles__references.htm
Jul. 24, 2012
6.
Diary
:Towle
7.
Rodgers
p.7
8.
Rodgers
p.7; Diary, Towle
9.
Rodgers
p. 82
10.
St.George Cooke , Philip. Cavalry Tactics: or
Regulations for the Instruction, Formation, and Movements of the Cavalry of the
Army and Volunteers of The United States . New York : J.W. Fortune , 1864.
eBook. <http://books.google.com>. p. 38
11.
St.
George Cooke, p. 38
12.
St.
George Cooke, p. 39
13.
McLean,
p. 10
14.
St.
George Cooke, p. 39
15.
St.
George Cooke, p. 40
16.
St.
George Cooke, p. 42
17.
Rodgers,
p. 98
18.
Rodgers,
p. 98
Wow! I didn't know half of this info. Thanks so much for taking care of "The Beal Boys". I think a collaboration is in order.:-)
ReplyDeleteRooting Around The Beal Family Tree
Cheri, thanks for the words of encouragement
Delete